


Punching Privileges

by faithlessone



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 19:41:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13981962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithlessone/pseuds/faithlessone
Summary: “I want to punch something,” Shepard grumbles, stripping off her armour and piling it on the bench without any of her usual care. “I really want to just… punch something. With my fists.”“Punch Alenko,” Ash says wearily, leaning heavily against the bulkhead beside the bench without even attempting to follow suit. “I’m too tired to give you a fair fight.”





	Punching Privileges

“I want to punch something,” Shepard grumbles, stripping off her armour and piling it on the bench without any of her usual care. “I really want to just… _punch_ something. With my fists.”

“Punch Alenko,” Ash says wearily, leaning heavily against the bulkhead beside the bench without even attempting to follow suit. “I’m too tired to give you a fair fight.”

Kaidan has to put up at least a token protest. The commander’s skills in hand-to-hand combat are frankly legendary, and he’s been using his biotics for hours. It’s really late, and he needs a mountain of food, a blisteringly hot shower, and a whole cycle’s sleep. Not necessarily in that order.

He’d really rather _not_ get punched right now.

Especially by her.

“Maybe she could _not_ punch Alenko?”

Shepard waves her hand in a vaguely dismissive gesture. “Fine. I’ll settle for getting really, really drunk.” Then she yawns, swaying just slightly as she pulls off the last of her armour, letting it slip to the floor. “Fuck, strike that. Fourteen hours’ sleep first, and then I’ll get really, really drunk tomorrow. Debrief in the morning. Ish. Get some sleep.”

“Ma’am, yes, ma’am,” Ash says, flicking a lazy salute.

Shepard doesn’t wait for Kaidan’s response, but, leaving her armour and weapons where they’ve dropped, makes her way towards the elevator.

He knows that she won’t do either. It’s just one of those things she says, like ‘one of these days, I’m going to throw Udina out an airlock’ or ‘sure, I’ll definitely go and get this bullet wound checked out by Doctor Chakwas’. 

More than likely, she’s going to go straight to her cabin, chug a carafe of terrible coffee, and get halfway through her mission report before she passes out. Tomorrow, she’ll be up at her usual obnoxiously early hour, and be back figuring out their next moves before anyone else has even woken up. 

Once the elevator door closes and she’s safely out of earshot, he turns back to Ash.

“Punch Alenko?” he asks.

Ash shrugs. “Self-preservation, LT. Today was rough enough already.”

He raises an eyebrow, but she’s still leaning against the bulkhead, eyes now closed. 

“Get changed, chief. Go sleep in a bunk.”

She makes a sort of crunching gesture (he’s not sure if it’s supposed to be a nod, a shrug or both) but no other movement.

Once he’s finished sorting his own armour, he bends down and starts picking up Shepard’s. She’ll really regret leaving it like this when she wakes up. Least he can do is clean her gear and put her things away in her locker.

Weird as it sounds, he doesn’t mind this bit. Methodically removing all the evidence of exertion and gunfire and battlefields. Making sure it’s ready for the next time he has to suit up. He deals with both their pistols too. Carefully. Shepard would probably have his head if he didn’t do it just right. 

When he finally looks up from the bench, Ash (still leaning against the bulkhead, still fully armoured) is watching him, a small smile playing around her lips.

“You’d totally have let her punch you, wouldn’t you?”

“What?”

She pushes herself up from the bulkhead, finally beginning to slowly remove her armour. “Shepard. You’d have let her punch you. Right now. If she wanted to. If she _needed_ to punch something. You’d have let her punch you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’d have let her punch you. Because you like her.”

Not bothering to respond, he turns away, stashing the newly-cleaned armour in their respective lockers and starting to give her pistol a last onceover.

“You like her,” Ash repeats.

He’s not sure if she’s saying it to get a reaction out of him or because she’s somehow only just figured it out. Either way, he’s not going to rise to it. 

“I respect her as my CO,” he counters. “And like her as a person.”

“You _like_ her,” she insists.

“Ash.” He lets just a note of warning creep into his voice. “Drop it.”

She shrugs again, holding her hands up in mock surrender. “Understood, LT. Just saying. It’s cute. She likes you too.”

He frowns at her.

“You know she doesn’t let anyone else touch her gear, right? Just herself and you. She doesn’t let the requisition officers even open her deliveries. I saw her literally smack Garrus’ hand away from her gun last week. _Garrus_. No lie.”

He didn’t know that, to be honest. There have been a few assignments where he’s offered to clean her armour once he’s done with his own, and she’s never said no. Under supervision, she’s let him install mods on her pistol, alter her omni-tool settings, even help her with her new amp. He never really thought about it.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” she needles.

He could walk away. He probably _should_ walk away. Get in the elevator and leave her to it. But something traitorous in the back of his head wants to know more.

“No one else?” he asks.

Her grin widens in a very significant manner. “Knew it.” It’s probably the post mission adrenaline-crash, but she looks almost deliriously gleeful at what she clearly takes as confirmation of her theory. “Hey, I don’t blame her. You do good work.”

He turns away again, pretending to be checking he’s stowed all his armour correctly but mostly just refusing to let her see the grin he can’t quite stifle. “I’m not cleaning your gear too.”

“Wasn’t asking you to. Would you let _me_ punch you if I needed to punch something?”

He’s half-inclined to send her to Chakwas to check if the tranq gas grenades she’d been using had somehow gotten through her filters. But it’s late and they’ve had a very long day. 

“We have perfectly good punch bags for that, Ash.”

She sighs, starting to break down her SMG. “Not the same. But I get it, loud and clear, LT. Punching privileges reserved for the commander.”

He doesn’t say that she was the one who offered him up as a punch bag. Just like he doesn’t say that she’s right. Or that he likes the idea that he’s the only one who gets to touch Shepard’s stuff. 

“Debrief in the morning,” he says instead, echoing Shepard as he finally makes a move to leave. “Get some sleep.”

He knows she’s still grinning, partly because there’s no way she isn’t, but also because he can see her doing so at the very edge of his vision. He keeps his own expression neutral, despite the fact that doing so isn’t easy.  

It’s only as the door of the elevator closes that he allows himself a smile. 

She likes him too.


End file.
